The Husband Hour(5)
Footage of Rory playing for the Kings. And then a press conference, Rory in a blue button-down shirt, his hair wet. “No game is perfect, no player is perfect,” Rory said. “We look at our athletes as heroes.” And then that wry smile, the one that always suggested that what he was saying was just the tip of the iceberg. “I have different heroes.”
Next, military footage. Soldiers in the Middle East. A clip of news anchors announcing that hockey star Rory Kincaid was walking away to enlist in the military. “A remarkable move from a remarkable young man,” one of them said. And then the secretary of defense, flanked by American flags, speaking at a press conference: “Corporal Kincaid sacrificed himself in the name of liberty and justice around the world.”
Game footage: Rory’s rookie season, the Kings against the Chicago Blackhawks. Rory takes a rough hit against the boards and goes down on the ice. Five games later, a stick against the jaw takes him down. October 2010, a fight with a Blackhawks defenseman. February 2011, a fight with Philadelphia Flyers’ Chris Pronger, and he’s out for weeks. Cut to his sports agent sitting behind a desk in his fancy Los Angeles office saying, “Rory’s career in the NHL was over.”
Craig leaned forward. “Where are you going with this?”
Matt paused the footage. “You want urgency? Fine. How about this: Rory Kincaid wasn’t a perfect example of selfless heroism. He didn’t walk away from the NHL—he limped away. Rory Kincaid was damaged goods. And it could have been prevented.”
Chapter Four
Lauren smiled at customers waiting to get into Nora’s Café as she breezed past them to start her shift. She was early for work and still the line stretched to the end of the block.
Summer had unofficially arrived and, with it, the shoobies—people who came to the shore only during the summer. They got their name from their unfortunate habit of wearing shoes to walk to the beach when any local worth his or her salt could go barefoot for blocks.
She’d barely have time to run upstairs and change into her uniform, a navy skirt and a pale yellow polo shirt. The building had a second floor with an office, a storage area, and a changing room for the staff. Most of them barely used it, but because Lauren liked to run to and from work, it felt like her personal locker room. She kept her running clothes, sneakers, and a stash of Gatorade in one of the closets.
“Morning, Nora,” she called to her boss, a sixty-something redhead manning the door and putting names on the wait list. Lauren didn’t bother offering to take over the task; Nora liked greeting her customers, especially the first few weekends of the summer.
Lauren signed in on the same clipboard Nora had kept by the kitchen since she’d opened her doors in 2005. Everything was done manually. Lauren took the customers’ orders on an old-fashioned ticket pad, each stub three deep: one for the kitchen, one for Lauren, one for clocking out at the end of the day. It wasn’t that Nora couldn’t afford to upgrade to a computer system, and she was certainly savvy enough to find one that would suit the restaurant. She simply went through life with the attitude of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
But four and a half years ago, Nora had recognized that Lauren was broken. That first winter, Lauren would sit for hours in the café, morning after morning, nursing a coffee. Sometimes she had constructive thoughts, ideas about starting a foundation in Rory’s memory. But most days, she just stared out the window.
Nora didn’t pretend not to know who she was, but she also didn’t watch her from a safe distance and whisper to the other employees. Both scenarios had happened endlessly in Lauren’s final weeks in Los Angeles.
Nora had simply brought Lauren a plate of eggs and bacon and said, “On the house.”
Lauren had looked at her suspiciously. “Why?”
“Because you’ve had a rough few months, and I know what that’s like.” Then she pointed to a painted sign above the table that read AIN’T NO PROBLEM BACON CAN’T CURE.
Lauren couldn’t help but smile. Was the word cure a pun on cured meat, or was she giving the sign too much credit? Either way, she thanked the woman. And it took a few weeks before Nora would accept any money from her for food. It took about a month for Nora to offer her a job.
Lauren glanced at the chalkboard to get a sense of the day’s specials and realized it hadn’t been updated. She called out to Nora for a rundown.
“Goldenberry pancakes, a hot quinoa bowl, a kale–goat cheese omelet,” she said. “I only got half the goat cheese I ordered so be prepared to eighty-six it because of this rush.”
Nora prided herself on an organic menu constructed around as many “super-foods” as possible.
Lauren jotted the specials on her ticket pad, grabbed a piece of chalk and updated the board, and then started taking table orders. She loved the chaotic rhythm of the restaurant. For hours at a stretch, she didn’t have time to think. She barely had time to breathe. When she was really in a groove, it was almost like running.
Lauren was in the zone during the crush of lunch when Nora summoned her to the front counter.
“You have a visitor,” she said in the same moment that Lauren saw the hard-to-miss blonde in cutoffs and mirrored aviator sunglasses.
Lauren fortified herself with a deep breath and marched over to the sister she hadn’t seen since Labor Day weekend, which had been Stephanie’s last visit to the shore.